Fic: Vessel (SPN, Dean/Castiel)
VESSEL
by Isos Arei
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Slash (Dean/Castiel)
Rating: R
Spoilers: for The Rapture
Summary: Castiel is still listening.
***
Sam was speaking to him again, but that didn't stop Dean from feeling like a giant tool. Not for locking his brother into a vault, no. That just couldn't have been helped, and how else was he supposed to have gotten Sam off freaking demon blood? But during the entire detox, every single day that Sam had been in there (first disbelieving, then pleading, then cycling through cursing and screaming and pounding on the door before passing out from exhaustion and starting over again), Dean had sat there with foam plugs shoved in his ears, failing miserably at not thinking about Castiel.
I don't serve man, and I certainly don't serve you.
Where the hell had that even come from? He'd only been calling after Castiel -- Castiel had started the whole thing anyway, showing up in his head and demanding that they meet up -- so it hadn't even made sense. But it had clearly been a dismissal anyway, and it still stung.
Dean flipped the TV on to a shopping channel selling ceramic angel figurines for three payments of $29.99 each.
"Son of a bitch."
Sam had left for the diner next to the motel, saying he would probably catch the local basketball game there. Dean was pretty sure Sam was not mad at him anymore (Bobby had given them the once-over as they were leaving, and concluded that they "were gonna be fine") but, yeah, a little breathing room would be good and help the weirdness move along.
Dean tried to find the game on TV, but the two other non-fuzz channels were showing pre-recorded church services.
"Son of a bitch," he said, shutting the TV off.
He lifted the old curtains back a bit so that he could see the highway through the window, the little car lights blinking on pair by pair as the sun set. The Impala was parked just outside the ground-floor room directly beneath theirs, and for a few moments, he thought about taking off for a while.
Dean had stopped asking what was the point, because there was no point to asking what was the point. Absolutely too much shit had gone down by now and he couldn't keep track of it all anymore, but the basics were clear. You had a job, you did your job, shit happened, and you spent forty fucking years in hell. Then you came back, more shit happened, seals were fucking broken, your brother drank demon blood, you threw him in a giant metal cage for days, and now he's watching college basketball. Oh, and the Apocalypse was still coming. But after all that, in spite of all that, you still go on doing the job, because that's just what you do. And maybe, because that's what he asked you to do.
Cas.
Dean could not claim that Castiel made things make sense. If anything, it was the opposite. What did that even mean, an angel? An angel -- not a man, not even human. Castiel was not even human, so who or what was it exactly that made Dean feel gutted just by walking away like that? And, knowing now exactly who Castiel's vessel had been, seeing Jimmy Novak plead to sacrifice his own life forever in the face of losing his daughter to the same fate, that had just made things even more confusing. Dean figured he would never know how much of what he saw in Castiel had really been the man being subsumed within. All he knew was the immense and guilty relief he'd felt when Castiel resumed the form Dean had become so familiar with. To have Castiel then, at that moment, withdraw with such sharpness -- it cut so much worse than when they'd first discovered that Castiel was simply not there at all.
"You are thinking of me."
"Jesus H. Christ!"
Castiel stood there, looking a little bit perfect, looking like always. In the back of Dean's mind, a small voice said, Looking like Jimmy Novak, and you don't even care because Castiel's back.
"You are thinking of me, and I can hear you," Castiel said in such a calm tone that it set something off in Dean. So he didn't bother even denying it.
"Why don't you stop listening, then?" he said, jaw tightening.
"I serve Heaven, but that does not mean I do not wish to hear you."
"Oh really?" And Dean forced himself not to cross his arms like a child. "Because you made yourself totally clear that day. You know, crystal."
Castiel stared at Dean. "You have developed an attachment to me."
"Oh, Jesus Christ--" Dean said, breaking away, but Castiel grabbed his arm.
"I am not James Novak," said Castiel.
What the hell do you say to that?
Dean sighed, and shrugged. "Cas, why are you even here?"
Castiel hesitated for the first time. "I came to... clarify what I said to you before. I may have overstated my position earlier."
You overstated your-- "What?"
"Dean, I know you have never requested my servitude."
"Um, what?"
"You--"
"Okay, you suck at apologies."
Castiel half-smiled, and after a beat, said, "And your acceptances seem to lack grace."
Dean started to laugh then, but Castiel was piercing him with that stare again.
"What?"
"You wanted to die when you saw James Novak dying."
This... did not really seem worth denying, either, not when the sudden memory of it was shooting through Dean's gut like real pain.
"You are attached to this vessel," Castiel was saying somewhere far off.
"I don't know how to separate you from... you, okay?" Dean sounded stupid to himself.
But Castiel was already placing Dean's hands over the place where the gunshot wound had been, and his voice, dropped low, was saying, "See for yourself that the vessel is -- that I am -- unharmed." It was true: Dean could feel that beneath the shirt, the skin was perfectly smooth. He looked up, and Castiel's eyes were very, very blue.
"You should not want to die, Dean, as I am fine," Castiel said.
"Yes. I mean no. I mean, yeah."
Castiel was okay, Castiel was not dying, and Dean was touching Castiel in a vaguely inappropriate way through a thin shirt. How do these things happen?
Dean couldn't remember being prompted, but all of a sudden he found himself not only not removing his hands from Castiel's person, but actually unfastening the buttons of the shirt one by one. Castiel did not make the world make sense, but he made some things feel right. Even so, alarms and bells and the words 'smite' and 'warning warp-core breach' were rushing through Dean's head, and he kept looking for a sign, but all he got was Castiel shrugging off the coat and jacket and loosening the tie and gazing at him with head tilted at that one angle.
"This attachment between us is fixed not only on your side."
What Dean said to that was, "Cas -- you gotta work a lot more on plain English, okay?" But what this was covering for was his stomach taking a swan-dive off the roller coaster tower at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.
"In plain English, I am requesting that you remove your own shirt faster, Dean." And there was that half-smile again, only now Dean couldn't even appreciate it, what with having his other major internal organs following where the stomach had just gone.
Somehow there was no smiting even after he had backed Castiel into the wall, pressing so that skin was hot against skin through Castiel's open shirt, and his hands were being guided straight down the front of Castiel's pants. Dean thought he was going to the special hell for this, and was about to say so until he remembered that, oh yeah, he'd already been to the special hell (was there ever a regular hell?) and--
"Dean Winchester, no one is going to any hells tonight."
So Dean forgot it all in the amazement of Castiel kissing him back, of Castiel gasping, panting, hard and warm and slick against his hand, and he thought he was going to explode from aching, just from the sound and the feel of Castiel's mouth groaning into his.
Sometimes Castiel made the world make sense.
They were tumbling now onto his bed, which like the other one in the motel room was too small to really fit both of them. The one corner of Dean's brain not occupied with Castiel turned its attention to ensuring a hold somewhere and not falling off the bed. Not an easy task, because Castiel was bent low and whispering in his ear, "I wish to hear you calling my name now," while stroking and pulling him with hands that burned with a heat he would long for every night after this.
Dean felt "Seraph" being torn from him between breaths -- from somewhere ancient and sacred -- but the low voice in his ear said, "No, that is not my name." His whole being seemed to catch on white-hot fire at the sound, and he started thinking he was gonna die soon, even if he didn't want to anymore, because he just couldn't take much more of this. But suddenly the fingers curling around him tightened their grip and sped their pace and brought his body arching up and up until Dean was surging shouting spilling calling "Castiel---"
It was no less than the first prayer he had meant in a long time. And in that same instant, Castiel's breath hitched, and his expression was stricken just as if his body had been shot through again, and Dean looked up to realize that Castiel had never appeared more human.
Sometimes, Castiel was the world.
But then they were falling back to earth, stardust in the wake, and they lay pressed together damp with sweat on a bed that was too small to hold so many unsaid things.
***
Too soon Castiel sat up, and as the bed moved, Dean knew he was going to have a massive backache tomorrow morning from sleeping on this mattress.
Then Castiel was saying that the basketball game was over and Sam was coming back soon, and should they not make the room again presentable by motel standards (such as they were), and that he should be on his way afterward. And Dean was cleaning, dressing, not really looking at Castiel, and feeling ridiculous because it was not like Cas could hang out with them 24/7 as if they were all on some aimless summer road trip.
***
When Castiel turned to leave, Dean under that long stare very nearly stuck out his hand like an idiot to shake on the goodbye.
But Cas -- so perfect and composed and detached sometimes -- Cas leaned close and said softly but distinctly, "I serve Heaven, Dean, but sometimes you are the whole world."